Right-wing politicians and their corporate lobbyist backers want to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of an upcoming “Grand Bargain.” Their goal is to cut social spending and investments in middle class America to pay for corporate tax cuts and more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

But it’s impossible to talk about the budget deficit without talking about the military budget. It has the largest share of discretionary spending, and we spend more on our military than almost the rest of the world combined.

Even Senator Tom Coburn — a hard-right Republican from Oklahoma — knows that much of this Pentagon spending is wasteful and completely unrelated to our modern security needs. He released a report a few days ago that laid out some of this wasteful spending. Here are a few highlights, from the Washington Times.

• $1.5 million to develop a special new roll-up beef jerky, which Mr. Coburn said was funded by taking money out of a weapons program.

1. War & defense spending should be brought up EVERY time

2. Oh please!

Wasteful is weapons systems, jets and tanks that nobody wants. What is wrong with developing portable nonperishable food for soldiers in the field? What is wrong with having philosophical discussion about encountering extraterrestrial intelligence as it pertains to military endeavors?

Bold progressives lists the military cuts that Tom Coburn is willing to vote for, and they bit on those red herrings.

This is how republicans sell upper income tax cuts and draconian budget cuts.

3. Yeah, I'm okay with funding going towards stuff like that, esp. if it comes out of weapons funding

The funding ratio being skewed more directly towards the soldiers themselves would be a Good Thing anyway - rations, housing, health care, training, the works. I'm not sure what the ratio of funding directly pointed at the boots on the ground (or their equivalents in other branches) to the funding for flagship procurements, the more wacky R&D, etc., is, but I'd bet it could stand to be more reasonable.

"$1.5 million to try and improve rations for a military this size" isn't really something I can get worked up about - as you said, there's much, much bigger things that warrant some real anger in the defense budget. This isn't one of them; it's more like whining about fruit fly research.

5. Part of the problem is Congress sometimes forces the military to buy equipment it doesn't want.

"If the Pentagon holds off repairing, refurbishing or making new tanks for three years until new technologies are developed, the Army says it can save taxpayers as much as $3 billion."

But there are a number in Congress who want the Army to keep purchasing tanks, tanks the Army says it has more then enough of already, in order to keep people in their state or district from losing their jobs if the tank production lines are shut down.

4. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

This VET says, "This country has designer military products. I agree that our service members should be fed, housed and taken care as best we can for our VOLUNTEERS. I think all companies that want to sell something should PAY 100% for the development and NOT be given any money for development. Paying for development is just an endless tunnel that NEVER ends. In the past when something was sold to DOD and it did not work there was NO COST. Today it just an open bank account with lots of dependent companies."

7. Google "Future Force Warrior" or "Future Combat Systems"

The Army spent hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out how to dress Our Troops like the Master Chief in the Halo series. If you want to talk WASTE, start there. Then look up the Joint Tactical Radio System. Or the Stryker Wheeled Combat Vehicle.

Now let's talk about the special new roll-up beef jerky. They funded it by diverting money...probably from Future Combat Systems...so it didn't cost the taxpayer anything because one thing the Army is really bad at is giving money back. It's something they can actually get to work. The troops will like it. More importantly, CIVILIANS will like it. A lot. The government can license this to a meat company and charge one cent per roll royalty, and pay back the $1.5 million in a couple of years. And every boy in America will have a roll of beef jerky in his pocket. Maybe he should highlight the millions of dollars the Army spent inventing Betadine--the povidone-iodine antibacterial that saves millions of lives. Or...oh, I dunno, the $1.75 million river ferry system we bought for Oklahoma City. (http://www.federalfunding.net/states/ok.htm)